Total Miles This Hike: 165.5
PCT Miles Covered: 1858.3
Today started out with a solid plan but now at the end of the day I appear to be walking into the unknown. Again. I didn’t make my 6:30AM goal but I was out of camp by 7:15. As I was leaving the lake I snapped this picture of a mother duck leading her babies through the water.
I had about 300 feet in elevation gain to get back to the trail from the lake, then another 1200ft to get to the highest point of the PCT in Oregon.
I was making great strides to get up the hill when once again I found myself taking a break and finding cell service. I checked the Klamathon fire status again and it had inched up to 96% contained. Slowly but surely they were getting it out. My hopes for this southbound gambit working were as high as ever (my ultimate mistake of the day). Not to repeat my long internet service break from yesterday, I assumed that the higher I got the better the service, so I kept going. Finally I reached the top of the hill and the highest point of the PCT in Oregon (and Washington) making this the highest I will be this trip.
It was actually a little windy up there, and my assumption of better service was wrong as I now had NO service again, so I didn’t break long and started to head down the other side. About 15 minutes later my day went from great to very stressful once again. I bumped into another female hiker and we chatted for a few minutes. Remember when I was so excited when it rained 2 days ago? Well apparently the thunderclouds that went through set off up to 50 lightning strikes in southern Oregon and many small fires had popped up. Great. Just Great. She said that she could see smoke through the valley yesterday and this morning, but had no clue of the severity of the fire(s) or how close they were to the PCT. This plan was gonna work dammit. If I make it all the way back to Crater Lake with the ability to get back and cover the closed miles of the Klamathon fire just to have another fire pop up and stop me before I get there, so help me god.
This only increased my speed and drive to get into Diamond Lake as fast as possible. I needed to find out any information I could as fast as possible. I soon came to the Howlock Mountain Trail which lead 7 miles down hill to Diamond Lake. This trail definitely isn’t used as much at higher elevations as I was going over and around a lot of blowdowns and there were sections of trail it was so faint I had to look around a lot to double check I was still on the trail. About halfway down it I got my first real view of Mt. Thielson. This mountain is a truly epic solitary mountain to behold.
Shortly after I came to Thielson Creek which is melt off of the glacier snow that resides on Mt. Thielson. The PCT crosses Thielson Creek at a much higher elevation that where I was at but the water was so clear and so cold I decided to take 2 liters even though I probly didn’t need it.
About a mile later the trail turned to literal sand as it merged with a horse trail that had been all dug up by hooves. The lower I got in elevation the hotter the sun became as well. I finally arrived at the road that leads into Diamond Lake praising myself for the decision to grab an extra liter of water. The plan was to stop really quick in the resort and walk another 3 miles to the south end of the lake where there was a pizza joint with a TV to watch the All-Star game and a free hiker/biker campsite around the corner. The mileages I had been given were a little off I think as I think I did between 1-2 miles extra once on the road just to get to the resort. Then, after walking north to south, the resort entrance headed in and backtracked about a halfmile north, so I just decided to skip the resort and head to the pizza place.
Even though I was fully exposed now I didn’t have to walk on the road. There was a paved bike path that lead from the resort and into another attached pay per site campground, then I just followed the campground roads all the way to where the campground ended and the bike path began again. The entire time walking next to the lake I could hear planes and helicopters (obviously using the lake for water drops on whatever fire was near) and I could see the light haze of smoke through the valley.
Finally the bikepath dropped me off right in front of South Shore Pizza.
I proceeded to order the Diamond Lake 12” special which was a bit pricey, but I made up for it by drinking about 12 mountain dews.
During the game I chatted up an older couple trying to find out about the smoke (because guess what? I had no cell service). They said they didn’t know but they came in from the southeast by Klamath Falls and they said there wasn’t any down there. Nobody who worked in the restaurant had any clue either. Believe it or not this actually made me feel a little better. If there had been another big fire like the Klamathon fire around, people would know and be talking about it. There probably is a fire close by but its probably really small right now. The Klamathon fire blew up faster than I have ever seen, but they all don’t do that.
So I sat and watched the game through the 9th inning even though the National League tied it up in the bottom of thr ninth. It was 8:45, getting clise to dark, and I still had to go find the hike/bike site and set my tent up. Plus the restaurant closed at 9PM and after being the for almost 5 hours, I don’t think they really wanted me to hang out for extra innings.
So I packed up and took off and actually was a lot closer to the site than I thought at the restaurant. Absolutely free with tap water and flushing bathrooms. Not Bad. I layed down after setting my tent up and checked one more time and boom I had service. Must have stayed up till well after 11PM (very late for a hiker) checking out fire info (no big ones close by.....phew), the news, sports, facebook and all. Unbelievably I still didn’t have good enough service to upload blog posts. I could do them without pictures, but I really think they would be boring (more than normal) if I did that.
Finally up to date on all things important, I passed out. Tomorrow should be relatively slow and easy as I make my way into Crater Lake National Park.
Keep on keeping on
- Patch
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